Two dish-pans A garbage-pail with cover Sink-brush Soap-shaker Wire dish-cloth Oil-can Brooms, dust-pans, whisk brooms, carpet-sweeper, etc. III THE TABLE The judicious purchase and use of food is the chief economical possibility of housekeeping. The rent is an incompressible item. Every month that immutable charge presents itself. It cannot be cut down. The only way to reduce it is by changing the dwelling. Fuel may be used with a discretion which lessens outlay, but in cold weather the house must be kept comfortable, even though the coal bills mount high. When certain repairs are due they have to be made or the rooms become unbearably shabby. Only in the domain of food is it feasible to apply a wise judgment in buying, a cultivated skill in cooking which induces cheap selections to be as savory in taste, as nutritious in qualities, as those which cost far more. Such ability in marketing and preparation does not come by nature. It must be studied and worked for, but it is worth the effort. At the first glimpse nothing seems simpler than for the young housekeeper to sally forth to a good market, make her selections, order them cut off and sent home, and pay for them--or have them charged! (Usually it is fatally easy to open a charge account!) The same notion prevails as to buying groceries. If a good shop is chosen, there is apparently no trouble about the transaction. Possibly there need be no difficulties if the family purse is so well filled that a little more or less expenditure is of no real importance. But few are the homes in which this state of affairs exists and most of us find it desirable, if not actually essential, to study the comparative prices of staples in different shops and localities, to learn if there is an advantage in making some purchases at one shop and some at another, instead of giving all the family custom to one merchant. Earlier reference has been made to the proportion of the income which is to go for rent. Positive assertions as to how much shall be spent on the food of the family are far less easy to make, and the degree of definiteness with which they are uttered is hampered by the constant changes in the price of food.